USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was a ''Constitution''-class heavy cruiser launched in 2245. In the course of her career, she became the most celebrated Federation Starfleet vessel of the 23rd century. In her forty years of service and discovery, through several upgrades and a comprehensive refit, she took part in numerous first contacts, military engagements, and time-travels. She achieved her most lasting fame from the five-year mission (2265-2270) under the command of James T. Kirk. The Enterprise was destroyed in 2285. ( ) Lineage ]] "Enterprise" (a Human word for a venture of scope, risk and promise) has a long Earth lineage, from the age of sail through the warp 5 engine. l'Entreprenant (Enterprising) was a French sailing ship in 1671. A subsequent ship, l'Enterprise was captured by the British Royal Navy in 1705 and renamed [[HMS Enterprize|HMS Enterprize]], a name used in British and American navies through the 21st century. A prototype for NASA's space shuttle fleet was named [[Enterprise (OV-101)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]] (OV-101) by popular demand in 1976. The first Earth Starfleet vessel commissioned ''Enterprise'' (NX-01) launched in 2151 under Captain Jonathan Archer, initiating the era of Humanity's deep space exploration. See also: Enterprise history Early History In the early to mid-23rd century, at least twelve heavy cruiser-type starships, the Constitution-class, were commissioned by the Federation Starfleet. The vessel registered NCC-1701 was constructed at the San Francisco Fleet Yards in Earth orbit and launched in 2245, christened the Enterprise. Larry Marvick was one of the designers of the Enterprise. ( ) :According to a computer display that was created behind the scenes, but never used onscreen, Jonathan Archer was present at the launch and died the next day. This information remains non-canon because it was never photographed on film. Captain Robert April oversaw construction of her components and commanded her during her trial runs and early missions. ( ) (''Dialogue given in the episode claims the ''Enterprise was the first Starfleet ship equipped with warp drive, however, this not only violates canon established by Star Trek: Enterprise, but also dialogue given in TAS: "The Time Trap" claiming that the Bonaventure was the first Starfleet ship equipped with warp drive.) Captain Christopher Pike commanded the ''Enterprise from the early 2250s into the 2260s. His missions included voyages to the Rigel, Vega and Talos systems. Pike's half-Vulcan science officer, Spock, who served under him for over eleven years, would become the starship's longest-serving officer. ( ) Kirk's five-year mission ]] In 2265, the Enterprise was assigned to a five-year mission of deep-space exploration, and command passed to the youngest captain in the fleet, James T. Kirk. Kirk's standing orders included the investigation of all quasars and quasar-like phenomena. Beyond her primary mission, the Enterprise defended Federation territories from aggression, aided member worlds in crisis, and provided scientific expeditions and colonies in her patrol area with annual examinations and support. ( ) :Despite 2270 being given as the year Kirk's first five-year mission in command of the ''Enterprise came to an end in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Q2", many production resources – including the booklet for the TOS Season 1 DVD set – continue to use the Star Trek Chronology's date of 2264 as the starting point of the mission. It is possible, however, that the mission ran from 2264 through 2269 and that Enterprise did not return to Earth until 2270.'' Discoveries From 2265 to 2270, Enterprise visited over seventy different worlds and encountered representatives of over sixty different species. More than twenty of those were first contacts with beings previously unknown to the Federation, including stellar neighbors like the First Federation and Gorn, voyagers from the Kelvan Empire in distant Andromeda, and powerful non-corporeal entities like the Thasians,Trelane, and the Organians. Two discovered species were the first known examples of silicon-based lifeforms, the Horta and the Excalbians. ( ) The five-year mission began less than auspiciously. An extra-galactic probe attempted on stardate 1312 led to Enterprise 's collision with the previously-undocumented galactic barrier, critically damaging various ship's systems and killing nine crewmembers. Effects of the barrier's unusual energy on Humans led to the death of three officers. After Enterprise was upgraded with Kelvan technology in 2268, she was able to survive the barrier crossing before turning back. In her final crossing that same year, the starship was temporarily stranded in a void region just beyond the barrier, before she could return to normal galactic space. ( ) The reality of time travel, externally influenced, had been known for over a century, but following two accidental temporal displacements, Enterprise became the Federation's first deliberately-controlled timeship. Observing the death-throes of Psi 2000, the crew suffered from polywater intoxication and Enterprise nearly lost orbit after an engine shut-down. A previously untested "cold start", via controlled matter-antimatter implosion, saved the ship, but the high-speed escape from the planet's gravity well caused the ship to travel three days into the past. In 2267, while escaping the gravitational pull of a black star, the Enterprise was hurled through space and time to Earth of 1969. The crew developed and executed a method to return to their own time, by warping around the sun's gravity well in a slingshot maneuver. A year later, Enterprise was ordered to repeat the recently-proven slingshot effect, and returned to Earth's past on a mission of historical observation. ( ) in 2268]] Some missions of discovery confronted Enterprise with entities and mechanisms that threatened great swaths of Federation and neighboring space. An ancient "Doomsday machine", fueled by the consumption of planets it destroyed with its antiproton weapon, approached Federation population centers in 2267. It required the combined efforts of the Enterprise and her sister ship [[USS Constellation (NCC-1017)|USS Constellation]] to destroy it. ( ) A single-cell organism of colossal scale emitted negative energy toxic to humanoid life, killing the entire Vulcan crew of the [[USS Intrepid (23rd century)|USS Intrepid]]. Enterprise penetrated the cell interior and destroyed the organism before its imminent cell division threatened to overwhelm the rest of the galaxy. ( ) Battles ]] The nature of her mission of exploration meant Enterprise was frequently the only Federation military asset in a little-known, otherwise undefended frontier. When she was called into harm's way, she regularly did so with little chance of immediate support against previously unknown enemies and threats. Happily, her earliest engagement of the five-year mission, against the deceptively powerful starship Fesarius, ended with an amicable first contact with the First Federation in 2266. Following the destruction of Cestus III, a surprise attack from a previously unknown species led to the battle and pursuit of an evenly-matched Gorn starship in 2267. ( ) Enterprise played fox to the hounds of her four sister starships in a war games exercise on stardate 4729.4. Equipped with the new M-5 computer and stripped of most of her crew, Enterprise became a killing machine – crippling the [[USS Excalibur (Constitution class)|USS Excalibur]] (NCC-1664) and killing her entire crew – before Kirk could re-assert control. ( ) Klingon engagements battle of 2268.]] The warships of the Imperial Klingon Fleet were frequent opponents of the Enterprise. Commander Kor held the Enterprise and Kirk in high professional regard, and relished the prospect of battle. Lower ranks chose to mock the starship, as when Korax compared her to a "garbage scow", before he corrected himself, adding, "it should be hauled away ''as garbage". ( ) While Starfleet rallied its forces at the outbreak of the First Federation-Klingon War, ''Enterprise was sent forward to secure a border region anchored by the planet Organia. She destroyed a Klingon attack ship and prepared to engage an approaching Klingon fleet before the Organian Peace Treaty precluded a full-scale war. ( ) Enterprise sporadically engaged Klingons throughout her voyage. A warship failed in an attempt to blockade Enterprise from Capella IV in 2267. Sabotaged during a diplomatic mission to the Tellun system in 2268, Enterprise successfully fought off the assualt of a harrassing D-7. After Enterprise was forced to destroy Kang's abandoned battlecruiser, the rescued Klingons (influenced by the Beta XII-A entity) attempted to wrest control of the the starship from Kirk in 2269. ( ). Romulan engagements of 2266.]] The Romulan Star Empire reemerged from a century of isolation to antagonize the Federation with the Neutral Zone Incursion of 2266. Enterprise responded, and was victorious over a new Bird-of-Prey equipped with a cloaking device and plasma torpedo system. ( ) In later encounters, the Romulan fleet used strength of numbers in their efforts to overwhelm Enterprise. When Commodore Stocker took temporary command and violated the Neutral Zone in 2268, up to ten Birds-of-Prey swarmed and pummelled the starship until Kirk's "corbomite" bluff inspired their withdrawl. ( ) Enterprise violated the Neutral Zone later that year for the purpose of espionage, and was quickly surrounded by three Romulan battle cruisers. She escaped by becoming the first Federation vessel to install and successfully utilize a (stolen) Romulan cloaking device. ( ) Near Tau Ceti, Kirk employed the Cochrane deceleration maneuver, allowing Enterprise to defeat Romulan forces. ( ) Casualties Service aboard the Enterprise proved to be hazardous duty. Fifty-eight officers and crew were killed between 2265 and 2269 – 13.5% of the standard complement of 430. Incidents with multiple fatalities included five security guards killed by the dikironium cloud creature on Argus X in 2267, and the four security guards and two engineering technicians killed by Nomad in 2268. An outbreak of Rigelian fever in 2269 killed three crewmen and imperiled the rest until a source of ryetalyn could be obtained. ( ) Refit and further service Reaching the end of her five-year mission, Enterprise returned to Earth in 2270. Following her success, Enterprise had become a recognized symbol of Starfleet and the Federation. Starfleet's array of unique assignment patches were abandoned for the universal adoption of the Enterprise delta symbol. The stalwart vessel herself was now twenty-five years old and returning from a deployment that included a unprecedented number of warp-speed records, hull-pounding battles, and frame-stressing maneuvers. , 2272]] System upgrades with new technologies after long deployments weren't unusual in her history, but Enterprise's overhaul of the early 2270s became a keel-up redesign and reconstruction project. The very heart of the ship was replaced with a radically different vertical warp core assembly, linked to new warp engine nacelles atop swept-back pylons and integrated with the impulse engines. The new drive system allowed for an expanded cargo hold in the secondary hull, linked to the shuttlebay. Weapons system upgrades included nine dual-phaser banks with power channeled directly from the warp engines. A double photon torpedo/probe launcher was installed atop the secondary hull. Multiple egress points now included a port-side spacedock hatch, dual ventral EVA bays, four dorsal service hatches, and a standardized docking ring port aft of the bridge on the primary hull; four more docking ring ports, paired on the port and starboard sides of the launcher and secondary hulls respectively, and service hatch airlocks on the port and starboard sides of the hanger bay's main clam-shell doors. A new bridge module reflected the modern computer systems, operating interfaces, and ergonomics that ran throughout the ship. Following Kirk's promotion to Rear Admiral as Chief of Starfleet Operations, his hand-picked successor, Captain Willard Decker oversaw the refit, assisted by Chief engineer Commander Montgomery Scott. In 2272, after two-and-a-half years in drydock for refit, Enterprise was pressed into service, weeks ahead of schedule, in response to the V'Ger crisis, once again under Kirk's command. Decker was temporarily demoted to commander and served as science officer because of his familiarity with the new design. Incomplete systems had to be serviced during her shakedown cruise en route to V'Ger, including the first test of the new warp engines. A matter/antimatter intermix malfunction led to the Enterprise's entry into an unstable wormhole. The timely arrival of Commander Spock brought correction to the problem. ( ) Once the V'Ger threat was averted, Captain Decker was listed as "Missing In Action" (MIA) and Enterprise remained under Admiral Kirk's command for an interim period. At some point, Kirk passed command on to Captain Spock. The new designs and components tested and proven aboard Enterprise influenced a generation of starship design, from the ''Miranda''-class to the ''Constellation''-class, as well as other retro-fitted Constitutions. ( ) Final days In 2285, Enterprise was in a low-tempo training cycle, based in the Sol system. Admiral Kirk boarded his old command to observe a cadet training cruise. Meanwhile, Khan Noonien Singh had escaped from his exile on Ceti Alpha V and hijacked the [[USS Reliant|USS Reliant]], leading to his theft of the Genesis Device from the Regula I space station. The Enterprise was tasked to investigate, and Spock deferred his command to Admiral Kirk. The subsequent engagements with Reliant left the Enterprise badly damaged with cadet and crew deaths, including Captain Spock. ( ) .]] Upon her return to Earth, Starfleet Commander in Chief Admiral Harry Morrow announced that the starship, now forty years old (although Morrow mistakenly claimed it was twenty years old; he may be referring to the length of time that Kirk has been in charge of the vessel), would be decommissioned. Denied his wish to return to the Mutara sector, Kirk conspired with his senior officers and stole Enterprise from Earth Spacedock, in order to recover Spock's body from the Genesis Planet; to bring it, and his katra, to Vulcan. At her destination, a Klingon Bird-of-Prey's attack left the Enterprise disabled. After setting an auto-destruct sequence, Kirk and his crew abandoned the ship for the surface. Demolition charges in place throughout Enterprise's hull exploded, killing the Klingon boarding party. The hull fell from orbit and immolated in the planet's atmosphere. ( ) :There is a difference in the appearance of the ''Enterprise between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: in Star Trek III, the ship's external appearance appears to have deteriorated around the areas damaged by Khan's attacks, while other areas of the ship that hadn't been damaged by Khan's attack had battle damage, including the starboard secondary hull, both nacelles, and the top of the saucer. http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/inconsistencies-movies1.htm#the_search_for_spock. Crew * [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel|List of USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel]] Commanding officers *Captain Robert April (2245) *Captain Christopher Pike (2250s through early 2260s) *Captain James T. Kirk (2265-2270) *Captain Willard Decker (during refit in early 2270s) *Rear Admiral James T. Kirk (2272-2281) *Captain Spock (2281 through 2285) *Admiral James T. Kirk during the Kahn crisis of 2285 Command crew under Kirk's command *Commanding officer **Captain James T. Kirk *executive and science officer **Lieutenant Commander/Commander Spock *Chief engineer **Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott *Chief medical officer **Doctor Mark Piper (2265) **Doctor Leonard H. McCoy (2266-70) *Helmsman **Lieutenant Lee Kelso (2265) **Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (2266-70) *Communications officer **Lieutenant Alden (2265) **Lieutenant Uhura (2266-70) *Navigator **Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell (2265) **Ensign Pavel Chekov (2267-69) **Lieutenant Arex (2269-70) **Lieutenant Ilia (2272) *Security chief **Lieutenant Commander Giotto (2267) Appendices Appearances *''Star Trek: The Original Series'' *''Star Trek: The Animated Series'' *''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' *''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'' *''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' * (shown on recording) *TNG: "Relics" (bridge shown on holodeck) *DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations" *ENT: "These Are the Voyages..." (closing montage) Background information *The design for the Enterprise refit was the basis of a Design Patent issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. *The Enterprise itself, as well as its interiors, was designed by Matt Jefferies. The refit was designed by Andrew Probert, based on the designs for the vessel made by Matt Jefferies for Star Trek: Phase II. *The Enterprise appeared in the motion picture Airplane II: The Sequel; when Commander Buck Murdock (played by William Shatner) gazes through a periscope at the Alpha-Beta Lunar Base, he is shocked to find the Enterprise moving through space. This gag was added due to Shatner's obvious connection with Star Trek as Captain Kirk. *The Enterprise was recreated as a new physical model for the DS9 Season 5 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". The CGI model of the Constitution class [[USS Defiant (NCC-1764)|USS Defiant]] created for "In a Mirror, Darkly" was relabled as the Enterprise for the final scene of "These Are the Voyages...", the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. *A new CGI model, built from caliper measurements of the original 11' physical model, was created for use in the remastered and recreated version of Star Trek: The Original Series. Enterprise (NCC-1701) de:USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) es:USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) fr:USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) nl:USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)